A Very Ruff Xmas 2011

On a recent trip to Europe, 3 generations of a family (a Holocaust survivor, his daughter & his grandchildren) dance to Gloria Gaynor's tune "I Will Survive" at concentration camps & war memorials throughout Europe

... and this is what happened to me on my visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.

The Yin & Yang of a weekend trip to Washington, DC

Carol and I traveled to Washington, DC ostensibly to attend a wedding. We had some free time & there were a few sites we both wanted to visit between our social obligations.

On Friday afternoon, in the blazing sun, we walked to the Vietnam Memorial wall. On the way there we ran into a friendly squirrel.

Calling it a wall is sort of a misconception, at least to us. While it is a wall, it is set into the side of a berm, i.e. it was not a free standing wall which we had always imagined it to be. This did not take away from its simple beauty or tragic symbolism. 

As we walked along it in respect of those who were sacrificed, I told Carol that what saddened me most was knowing that 35,000 of those 'names' became eligible for their etching only after the start of peace talks between the United States & the Republic of North Vietnam. 

The two sides first had to first decide on the location for the negotiation, then the shape of the table the negotiators were to sit at & other such important items before getting into the protracted peace talks which where punctuated by extra U.S. bombing runs to make a negotiation point, the suspension of the talks & the return to talks, a dance that went on  for years so everyone could save 'face'.

Saturday morning started with a cholesterol filled breakfast (eggs benedict) & a cooler walk to the National Holocaust Museum. It was crowded, many of the vistors where young. I guess that's a good thing but I couldn't imagine how these kids were going to absorb what they were to read & what they would see.

In the museum lobby, you take an ID card which contains the photo and the story of a person who died in the holocaust. My person was a Polish Jew named Chaim Engel. When the Germans invaded Poland, they sent him to Germany as a slave laborer. In 1940 he was shipped back to Poland but immediately deported to the Sobibor death camp. There a small prisoner revolt took place; Chaim stabbed his overseer (to death) while screaming the name of his father & his mother & others murdered with each thrust of the knife. Chaim escaped into the dense forest where he hid out until the war ended. After living in Europe & Israel, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1957.

At the start, the museum is dark and foreboding. No natural light filters through the steel covered windows.

The tour beings on the forth floor and wends its way down an irregular ramp which takes you through different spaces of exhibits, photos, videos, news reels, clothes, hair, films, objects (large & small) in a time line from the rise of the Nazi Party to the present.

But to give you an inkling of the intensity is to describe traveling to the fourth floor in a crowded industrial-like stainless steel elevator; to me a reflection of the gas chambers that were used to poison groups of un-suspecting prisoners. At some level I felt some relief when the doors opened on the fourth floor.

The story of the Jew's descent into hell begins with Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) and continues as the race laws were enacted, destroying Jewish life & dignity bit by bit before destroying bodies and minds. Then came the camp experience told by survivors via film & audio recordings. Next the liberation as seen by the troops and here I have to pause for a moment to describe one video that impacted me deeply but I didn't know it until later when it hit me like what I imagine PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) episode must be like. 

When the allies reached Auschwitz & Bergen-Belsen & other camps, the Nazis had not had enough time to destroy all the 'evidence' of their atrocities so the allied soldiers found piles of dead bodes which had not yet been burned along with mountains of shoes & hair, and brushes & spoons. Oh yes, there were the odd skeletal survivors & one can only marvel at the strength of the body to survive such horrors. 

To avoid disease, the allied army was tasked with buring the piled dead bodies in mass graves. This was accomplished using bulldozers so there I stood watching a video of these bulldozers pushing piles of emaciated corpses into a mass grave & covering them with dirt. 

Then came the story of how no one would accept the refugees from these camps who had nothing, some left without their dignity nor a shred of clothing to hide their bodies. Not the United States, no country really, so Jewish organizations set up camps for these people to heal & to get organized before moving on.

We walked through narrow hallways with photos from ceiling to floor on both sides of people who had lived in the shtetls (villages) before the war, the names of these shtetls engraved in glass to be glanced at as we moved along. Then the names of the inhabitants of the shtetls also etched in glass. Some light could now be seen as we approached the end of this tragic journey. 

But just before we reached the first floor, there was a vast bright and almost empty room save some simple stone benches & an eternal flame. There were only a very few people in there. 

It was the remembrance room where people could sit and meditate, to think about what they had just seen & heard, to think about relatives or friends, or friends of friends, or relatives of friends, or period stories read & to consider some of the more recent ethnic cleansing in Europe and Africa. 

It reminded me of the a room in the Jersalem Halacoust Museum -- a room of eternal flames -- a number of them placed on the floor below a low, wooden, viewing balcony, each flame representing a remembrance of the thousands of Jews lost in each country conquered by the Nazi war machine. 

I started to enter the Washington Holocaust remembrance room & felt a sudden need to stop as though a strong hand was in front of me, preventing me from entering. Mind you, this was all in nano seconds. But I turned away overwhelmed by an enormous emotion, a sorrow, so huge that it left me with the greatest urge to burst into tears but I managed to keep myself together. Carol must have seen something on my face & asked if I was all right. I couldn't talk. I could only shake my head. 

Outside we sat on a stone bench, watched children lined up waiting for their tour to begin, and talked about other things: the weather, what we would do next, the back timing necessary to get to the chuch on time. After a few minutes we walked back to the hotel. 

Four thirty in the afternoon found us at the little yellow church near the White House for a lovely wedding ceremony followed by cocktails, dinner, speeches & dancing. 

The date was May 22rd & it wasn't until many hours later that I flashed on my 97 year old father being buried about six weeks before, his coffin in the hole in the ground; everyone throwing shovels full of earth into the hole to cover the coffin which contained his body, emaciated by old age. He would have been 98 on May 23rd.

For my mother on mother's day

You wonder about my mother. Well, my mother is my hero in life. She was smart, funny, independent (except at the end), creative & terribly honest. She could strike up a conversation with anyone -- and did -- while guarding her privacy -- and she did. She was extremely proper but open minded to new ideas & customs which she never followed. She was a great date & while I was in prep school in PA she used to take me to New York to the theatre, museums, and the like.

Many years later, when I first came to New York to work after college, my mother came to my little apartment to find an empty refrigerator & a dusty floor & insisted that I had to buy food & have a maid. I explained that I never went into grocery stores & that I didn't want anyone cleaning up after me. However I agreed that I would accompany her to the grocery store only to wait outside while she shopped. I did this barefoot. I also agreed to a maid as long as I never met her, never paid her, never had to tell her what to do. This was accomplished, starting one day the very next week while I was at work. This lady bought food, cleaned the apartment, left me notes & I never laid eyes on her. A couple of years went by.

Then Carol & I started dating. One night she stayed over & slept in as I went to work. The next morning as Carol lay drowsily in bed, she heard the door open & a person enter the apartment. Frightened, she wrapped her naked body in a sheet & jumped into the closet where she was discovered by the maid. The next week, I found a note from the maid saying she felt I was now in good hands & didn't need her help any more and she never returned.

As my mother grew old, she became afraid of this and that & my father, ever the doctor & loving husband, took care of her. Slowly but surely over the years my mother fell into decline. Finally she entered the hospital as an emergency patient several times with fluid in her lungs & a weakened heart. The last time she entered the hospital, she suffered an attack of some kind which landed her in ICU where she was strapped down, intubated, fed intravenously, diapered, bathed, handled, rolled over, & examined every few hours.

Nightly we met with her doctor -- my father, my sister & I. My father & sister discussed her medical condition since they are both doctors while I sat across from my mother's physician merely listening. Finally I explained to my mother's doctor that I had a different agenda. I believed he was practicing the best & worst of medicine -- the best because of all the technology & medical advancements, the worst because my mother had no quality of life nor could we ever hope for one. I asked that he make her more comfortable with more drugs so she could rest peacefully. He explained her dosage & I explained that I didn't care -- I wanted it doubled. It was.

Finally my mother died strapped down, intubated, fed intravenously, diapered, bathed, handled, rolled over & examined every few hours. She was sleeping.

The Jewish religion includes a ritual bathing by women from the synagogue who then wrap the body in a shroud to be buried in the simplest of pine boxes. But before that happened my father insisted on seeing her one last time -- something that is not done. And he wanted us all to see her, too.

I entered the storage room where the wooden coffin rested on a table. My father, sister & brother-in-law went left, towards the head of the coffin. I turned right towards the foot of the coffin & as I walked around the pine box, I gently removed the toe tag from her right toe -- just like the movies.

There was my mother, world traveler, great date, funny, smart, independent, creative & terribly honest, lying there in a simple dress, cold & colorless with a toe tag. Thanks to my father, that's the last memory I have of her.

I talked to my mother every day during the several years of her decline. I shared her fright of falling, her frustrations of not being able to write because her hands shook, losing her appetite and her strength, not being able to read (her favorite pastime) & her fear of death. Her own mother had died at age 83. She did, too. I still try to talk to her every day. Some days are harder than others.

Maybe We'll Leave Ridgefield

Eleven years ago Carol & I moved to Ridgefield CT after seventeen years in beautiful Pound Ridge to live in a quaint New England town. This was going to be our last stop. While Ridgefield remains a wonderful town, it's beginning to remind me of what happened to us in New York City.

Many, many years ago we bought into an historic brownstone on an historic street on NYC's upper west side. It was in the 70's between Central Park West & Columbus Avenue. We had a neighborhood watch. People cleaned up after their dogs (before there was a law). Mr. Tiffany had once owned the brownstone across the street & you could see his study, complete with a back lit Tiffany glass ceiling; it was that kind of neighborhood. And it had a mix of all kinds: from folks who had moved there 30-40 years prior to newcomers, renters as well as owners. The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards was a neighbor. So was a well known heart surgeon.

Columbus Avenue was replete with tiny mom & pop shops: dry cleaning, fruit & veggie stands, cheese & hardware stores & the corner newspaper shop where Morris (who owned it) was the only person who cashed personal checks, knew everyone and had everyone's preferred paper ready for them in the morning. There were old styled soda shops with stools and counters, ordinary coffee and lots of mirrors, chrome & vinyl. Richard Ruskay of Ruskay's served reasonably priced, delicious meals to couples in old fashioned booths.

Then the neighborhood got gentrified. Fancy coffee houses, those kitschy little shops sprung up like so many weeds, Morris had to move out to make way for Putamayo and the rest is history. The sidewalks became so crowded with strangers that stepping into the gutter was sometimes necessary just to get by.

The neighborhood had been devoured and so we moved away, having lost the very quality we had bought into, worked hard to preserve and loved so much.

Did I have my first out-of-body-experience?

I was attending a town meeting relating to this year's budget & taking notes for a possible article later in the week. As I looked up from my Samsung Netbook I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. That may not be the most accurate phrase to use but I don't know what else to call it. (I'm open to suggestions)

Across from me, a woman was scanning the local newspaper & this was the page she was on.

All I could see is what I've highlighted. There was nothing else on the page except my father's obit.  I wondered if she was reading it. Was she merely scanning it  or had she completely ignored it? How could she do that? 

She seemed focused so possibly she was reading the obit and, if so, what would she think?  Was she impressed with his accomplishments?  Did she wonder about him?

I wondered if she going to look in my direction.  Silently: "I hope she doesn't say anything to me." It's so awkward to thank people who offer their  pro forma condolences without an ounce of sincerity or care.  OTOH, I guess they don't have to say anything. This woman did not say anything. And I wondered, if indeed she hadn't read any of the obits on that page ,how whole lives could be so casually & completely ignored.

On Sundays I generally watch all the public affairs shows, i.e. ABC's 'This Week', 'Fox News Sunday', NBC's 'Meet The Press', Fareed Zakaria's 'GPS', CNN's 'State of the Union' & 'The Chris Matthews Show'.

I will only refer to one show for reasons that will become obvious in a moment.

Besides interviewing the current news makers, The ABC show also offers political humor, generally from Comedy Central or the late night shows & an 'In Memoriam' section where they offer mini-biographies of interesting people who have died during the week. Then they list the names of all the service people --  along with their ages & home towns -- who were killed in our two current theaters of war.

No matter what I'm doing, bored, multi-tasking, day dreaming...... when the 'In Memoriam' section begins I focus entirely on the television set, listening intently to every mini-biography while staring at the pictures of these people & I silently read every name, age & hometown of those who have lost their lives in war.

The vast majority of the prior group are older, the latter group younger.  When I see a name followed by a II or a III, I think how sad that the line was ended this way.  Of the older group, I consider how much they have contributed to this world that I live in.

I want to pay my respect to all these people -- in both groups -- as best as I can at the moment, under the circumstances.  I feel better having tried.

Did that woman do that for my father. I'll have to wonder.

Tribute to my Father

Nathan Rifkinson, MD

May 23, 1912 - March 21, 2010

Delivered to those who came to pay their respects

On the occasion of my father's passing, I want to say some things about him &, frankly, it is hard to know where to begin as I have so many mixed emotions.

Yes, he was my father & I knew him better than he thought I did. But I also have to share this father thing with many of you in this room which is a great honor.
 

It is a sad day but I prefer to remember the more interesting things about my father. He was -- to say the least -- a complicated man who presented a number of mixed messages to all of us. And all of us had to get used to these and other contradictions to understand who he really was.

My father was an only child but he grew up amongst a group of cousins. He loved that life with his cousins. They played amongst the push carts in the streets of New York City & they traveled together to the countryside during the summers in a rickety model "A" Ford. They got into fights, had girlfriends and boyfriends, grew up and grew apart. But of that group of cousins, my father was the only one who became a professional.

His cousins knew him as Natie. His wife, his many friends & colleagues knew him as Nathan, He was dad for me, daddy for Stephanie, grandpa to the two young ladies sitting there in the front row & Dr. Rifkinson to some of you.

After working his way through college & medical school, finishing his internships & residency, my father wandered in his early medical years: first in general medicine then in public health, finally as a pathologist at the Bayamon District Hospital.

But the Government of Puerto Rico offered him the biggest opportunity of his life: a three year fellowship to Barnes Hospital in St Louis Missouri, to study Neurosurgery under the great Dr. Sachs, himself a student of Harvey Cushing, the father of modern Neurosurgery. So off he went, me & my mother, too.

When we returned from St. Louis -- by that time I was 5 & Stephanie wasn't....yet... the government   provided us a half a house to live in. The other half was occupied by Doctora Janner, a psychiatrist. The house was situated between the insane asylum & the prison in Rio Piedras, not the most picturesque location but my father was grateful.

I learned to drive down the long entrance to the insane asylum sitting on my father's lap & we had prisoners doing yard work.

In 1950, when the Independentista revolution broke out, much of the traffic from the outlying parts of the island was funneled onto a road that ran directly in front of our house and each car had to be searched for weapons at a road block, manned by very young & nervous National Guardsmen.

Frequently, gunfire would erupt & bullets went flying, some right into our home. No, this was not a Hillary Clinton sniper moment. This was for real & I remember the three of us hunkered down behind a thick cement wall that divided the living room from the dining room.

It was during one of these dangerous moments that the phone rang. There was a patient in need & it was the only time that my mother absolutely forbade her husband to leave the house, although that was his first instinct -- to go see that patient who needed him.

I grew up -- & then Stephanie grew up -- knowing that patients came first. That was my father's primary focus & responsibility.

He was very grateful to Puerto Rico & loved the people. He worked hard for them, for you, & for us. And I think he never forgot that large family of cousins because, through the years, he amassed a huge group of medical students, interns & residents, their spouses & their children, all of whom he considered family.

As a result, many of us in this room today share similar experiences & know that he could be as demanding as any dictator, as devoted as any priest or rabbi, as generous as any philanthropist, as self centered as any super star and still, despite it all, he was a humble man who never forgot his roots, loved to argue and had a theory about absolutely everything.

So all of you here today are part of our family, Stephanie and I know, appreciate & are proud of that fact. Like our father, we will never forget Puerto Rico, what it did for him, what it means in our own lives. We have both traveled the world but we always love coming home. It is after all, home, where we were born and where both our parents remain.

Towards the end of his life, many of you returned the love & respect he had for all of you by taking care of him in so many ways, big & small. Doctors who didn't make house calls, did. The nurses he had worked with for years, the residents he had helped train, all gathered around him when he was hospitalized in the wards he had helped design.

And when he came home, friends and colleagues stopped by to confer, chat, bring little gifts of food, photos & articles. And -- as the news spread -- the phone calls, the endless stream of phone calls, from people all over the world. Invitations to coffee, movies, ice cream, dinner, concerts, holidays filled his last years.

Stephanie & I know our father loved his life here, with and amongst all of you. You gave him a great & rewarding life & he truly appreciated it.

Thank you for demonstrating your love & respect for our father by coming here & sharing this time with us today. After all, in the end, we are all one big Puerto Rican family.

March 23, 2010

San Juan, Puerto Rico

30 minutes in a life

My father is dying. He is 97, comfortable, not in distress nor in pain, slowly slipping away. It could be a matter of days or weeks or maybe even a few months. He is the-little-engine-that-could, known on the streets when he was growing up on the lower east side as 'tough Natie', aka the state college boxing champion -- fly weight division -- circa 1930. 

He lives in Puerto Rico where he has been for more than 60 years & where his wife, my mother, is buried near a scrawny tree in the Jewish part of the cemetery off Route 1, the road to Caguas.

He is well cared for at home, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by people who have known him & have cared about him for decades.

Over the past few years, I have flown to P.R. often to visit him, sometimes for weeks at a time, sometimes in emergencies, sometimes just to visit & to push him through the little park that fronts his condominium. During this period, I've had some very personal conversations with him; some about him, some about me, some about our strained relationship.

His decline in mental, as well as physical health, has been gradual but steady over the past two years. Through it all, he has dealt with it in a pretty realistic way. He is a doctor, after all, familiar with death, and says he is not afraid to embrace it when his time comes naturally.

I don't think he believes in an after life as such but sees it more as release of his life's electrical energy back into the universe. He's been quite dignified throughout this time.

The thoughts that cause me to write this are as follows: should I fly to Puerto Rico now & wait until the end comes or should I wait until I get that phone call announcing his passing, then fly down, help with the necessary arrangements, attend the ceremonies & return to Ridgefield, CT where I live. 

Is this issue about the 'show', about him or about me? 

I've never cared much about what other people think, i.e. the 'show'; "See?... his son has been here to see him every day... so nice.... to have been able to say good-bye." 

Since dad basically sleeps all day, is on oxygen constantly, can't move on his own even to feed himself, is easily confused, forgets the last sentence spoken to him and mumbles almost incoherently, it's hard to imagine that it would make much difference to him if I was with him on his last day.....or not.

That leaves me with me. How would I feel if I was down there on a 'death watch'. How would I feel if I got the phone call. I've been thinking about it for a while now.

A few weeks ago, when I was in Puerto Rico, visiting with my father, I went to his apartment at lunch time as this is the time he is most alert. Unable to feed himself, I volunteered to do it.

His eyes were closed & remained so as we moved him into a sitting position & I explained I had food for him. He mumbled something incomprehensible & I told him he would have to help me by opening his mouth, that the food was good & it would make him stronger. He nodded, eyes still closed. 

So I took a bit of food on a spoon and told him to open his mouth wide, into which I deposited what was on the spoon. I waited patiently as he chewed and swallowed. After a number of spoonfuls, I offered him water through a straw & he sucked it in (a good exercise). And so we proceeded this way for the better part of a half hour. When he signaled he had enough, I wiped his face, removed his bib & he nodded off.

After watching him sleep a bit, I kissed his forehead & left, returning to the hotel where I was staying. It was February 25th and I realized it was the same day that my mother had died 15 years previously. What more can I say?

I'm not sad. I'm convinced another visit with my father can't be better than what I've described. I'm content to just hold that memory  close...... and wait.... for that inevitable phone call.

Speech Delivered On My Father's 95th Birthday

May 23rd, 2007, San Juan Puerto

We are here this evening to celebrate the longevity of a life, my father's.

Thinking about this evening, what fascinated me was considering the times Nathan has lived through. If I broke it down into years, we'd be here all night so I thought about the broad strokes of the decades.

My father, as most of you have probably figured out, was born in 1912 & that same year the Titanic sunk. OK... let's jump to the 20's.

In the 20's penicillin was discovered & we had both flappers & the depression.

In the 30's Nathan graduated from medical school got married got a little boat, picnicked on the beaches of some romantic islands in the virgins and practiced medicine by horseback with my mother by his side.

Meanwhile wall street had crashed, the great depression was a reality & migrant workers were mostly white Americans.

In the 40's another war ended the depression, Jackie Robinson crossed the color line, Puerto Rico elected it's first governor. I was born & my father became a Neurosurgeon.

In the 50's Rosa Parks sat down, Sir Edmund Hillary climbed up Mt Everest, Castro became a dictator as Puerto Rico's first constitution was approved. The Independistas revolted, another war broke out & Stephanie was born.

In the 60's we landed on the moon, assassinations & demonstrations abounded, all hell broke loose and the internee's predecessor was born.

In the 70's the first Puerto Rican cardinal was ordained & Roberto Clemente was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, an exhausted peace settled across the land, the Watergate pimple popped & I began work on a new television program. The logo for the show was a pair of glasses & it was called 20/20. In the early days of 20/20 the best thing about it was the title.

We all know we have perfect vision in hindsight. It's the future that can be a slightly out of focus. It is my observation that most of us have very little vision in our early years . As we grow into maturity & beyond, our vision improves, sometimes with the help of glasses.

Sometimes that clarity brings on the mid-life crisis. We see things we are doing in a larger context, the things we passed up along the way & we wonder about changing course. I don't think my father ever had a mid-life crisis as he was always busy doing the work that he loved so much.

In the 80's some revolutionary acronyms became part of our vocabularies: AIDS, PC, CNN & WWW. The Titanic was located & Tienanmen Square happened.

The 90's introduced us to the Ebola Virus, Viagra & a Puerto Rican Doctor/Governor.

For the Millennium, a terrorist -- bent on blowing up Seattle's Space Needle -- was stopped at the Canadian border, Nathan turned 88 & the entire world celebrated.

And here we are in 2007 just a few years after the iPod became a common denominator, gathering around for Nathan's 95th birthday. This is his ninth decade, still fruitful, philosophical and opinionated. And I can tell you with great assurance that the despite the problem he is having with one of his eyes, his vision is definitely 20/20.

He's had a long time to reflect on the world around him & his place in it. I think he's proud of his accomplishments and comfortable in his skin. That's the way it should be @ this stage of life.

And being the competitive man that he is, I'm sure there are more decades left in him.

This evening is a wonderful celebration & I'm going to take the liberty of speaking for my sister -- although maybe I should think twice about that now that she's a lawyer -- to say how much we appreciate all of you who are here sharing this moment in my father's history and a very special thank you to the Bixlers who organized it.

This is, indeed, a joyous occasion. My only sorrow is that my mother is not here to enjoy it with us.

So here's to you, Nathan & dad. Happy 95th Birthday.

Tara made me do it

What a good book can do for you.

I just finished reading an excellent little book called "Losing Mum & Pup" by Christopher Buckley on the subject of becoming an orphan.

I enjoyed the book tremendously as it was honest, funny, profane but when I finished it I think I became a bit depressed.

I started thinking about how claustrophobic a coffin might be & wondered if you could really be sure that the ashes you got back (assuming you went that route) were those of your loved one. I mean, how could you tell? And if I wondered about that, I wondered how I might ever be comforted by having a pot of doubtful ashes on my mantel or side table.

I guess I starting thinking about these things because my father is 97 and is dying very slowly of renal failure. He's not in pain & won't go on dialysis (I salute his decision) so it's just a matter of a short while, maybe months.

Whenever he dies he will be buried in a plain pine box next to his wife, my mother. One way or another, they'll be together again. So much for my thoughts about coffins.

But then I started thinking about Carol's wishes. She says she wants to be cremated & scattered in the Mediterranean. I promised I would do that.  Putting the questions of legitimate Carol ash aside, I then wondered what I would want. Once I scatter Carol, I'll never find her again. If I get scattered, where would I want to be -- the Mediterranean too? Is it comforting to think I'd be in the same sea?

And if I went the Jewish burial-in-a-pine-box route, where would I want to be planted? Ridgefield? Puerto Rico, next to my parents? Hmmmm. Not very romantic & besides, I'm 66 & all grown up now.